Canal View Room 6
- on the first floor:one flight up -

an elegant room with a view...and an Art Deco table from the 1920's from the famous Literary CAFÉ SLAVIA in PRAGUE,
which KAFKA might have sat at...
(Please keep in mind, some photos are made with a wide angle lens).

Canal View Room 6
...humble hommage à Constantinople...with a guilded ceiling,a gold leaf plated cupboard,handcrafted by a Dutch artisan,an Art Deco bed cover and an exact replica of an original Tiffany lamp and
...a 19th century giltwood and gesso mirror from France.

Canal View Room 6

...With 2 English Leather Chairs,
...an Art Deco Table from the famous CAFÉ SLAVIA in Prague from 1920's,
...a Valuable Oriental Carpet,
...Beautiful Curtains from Italy,
...a 19th Century Louis XVI Style Demi Lune (which was transferred to Canal View Room 7 and replaced by a gorgeous handcrafted Marquetry Piece of Furniture - not yet on the photo) ,
...a French Guiltwood and Gesso Mirror from the 19th Century

Canal View Room 6

...A beautiful and valuable handcrafted marquetry box concealing a surprising secret.

Canal View Room 6

...With a valuable Repica of an authentic Tiffani Daffodil Lamp (only an Expert Could See the Difference)

Canal View Room 6

Restored and Guilded Ceiling

Canalside room 6
...with a view from the "Italian" bathroom at the gold plated cupboard

Canalside room 6
Italian beauty in the BATHROOM

Canal View Room 6

L'IMAGINATION AU POUVOIR or
Daydreaming in Amsterdam

of Old World Charm,at the HISTORICAL table of Café Slavia...of KAFKA's PRAGUE...Baudelaire's Paris (Le mythe de la grande ville)...the Splendor of Dresden (mon amour: "in blinder Liebe zugetan")...and "Constantinople" ("City of the World's Desire"...and Cultural Capital of Europe 2010).

...PRAGUE? CAFÉ SLAVIA!
The famous Grand Café Slavia, located across from the National Theatre, opened in 1881 (the same year as the theatre) and became a meeting place of artists and intellectuals, including former president Václav Havel who was a frequent customer during his dissident years. The café was closed in 1991 due to ownership issues, and reopened six years later, having been restored to its 1930s Art Deco look. It is a nice place to go for coffee and dessert at the end of the day or after a night at the theatre.



Literature needs REJOICE! As well as being able to eat at Milan Kundera's favourite cafe, you can dine with another ghost of Prague's literary past, FRANZ KAFKA, AT CAFÉ SLAVIA (former Czech president Vaclav Havel used to frequent the Slavia in his dissident days as well). Opened in 1881, the cafe has historically been the hangout of the intellectually hip, attracting writers and their groupies, as well as dissidents and intellectuals during communist times, to its Art Deco halls.

Franz Kafka, born in Prague in 1883, came from a Jewish family who spoke German as their native tongue (as many people did in Prague when it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), though he also spoke near-perfect Czech and some French. Although he didn’t publish much during his lifetime (almost all of his works were published posthumously), and he always worked a regular job (as a legal clerk and insurance officer), Kafka considered himself a writer first and foremost, with his “proper” jobs earning his survival and serving as masks behind which he could hide his true literary persona. Thoroughly immersed in the bureaucratic quagmire of the insurance company world, the alienation and absurdity of bureaucracy often entered his writing, particularly in The Trial.